Is property dualism more plausible that substance dualism?
If these remarks from on old essay of Jaegwon Kim are correct, apparently not.
First, the general argument: philosophers have observed, in connention with the mind-body problem, that a thoroughgoing physicalism can no more readily tolerate the existence of irreducible psychological features or properties than irreducible psychological object (e. g. Cartesian souls, visual images). The thought behind this is some thing like thisIf F is an irredcucible psychical feature, then its existence implies some thing that is F,,,This means that there would be a physically irreducible event or stateof this thing being F, or a physically irreducible fact, namely, the fact that this thing is F. So the world remains bifurcated: the physical domain and a distinct, irereducible psychical domain; and physical theoyr fails as a complete and comprehensive theory of the world. Moreover, we m ight want to inquire as to the cause of something's b eing F. This gives rise to three possibilities, none of them palatable to the physicalist: first, the cause of the psychical event is a mystery not accessibleto scientific inquiry, second, an automonous psychical science emerges, third, physical theory providesw a causal explanation of the psychical phenomena. The last possbility may be the worst, from the physicalist point of view, this would mean that physical theory would lose its closed charcter, countenancing within its domain irreducible nonphysical events and properties.
Jaegwon Kim, 'Epiphenomenal and Supervenient Causation" Midwest Studies in Philosophy 9 (1984) 267.
3 comments:
' third, physical theory provides a causal explanation of the psychical phenomena. The last possbility may be the worst, from the physicalist point of view, this would mean that physical theory would lose its closed charcter, countenancing within its domain irreducible nonphysical events and properties.'
I'm not sure I understand this last bit.
What is so wrong with materialists in having irreducible nonpyhisical things like the number 4 or the square root of minus 1 in their worldview?
And does physical theory really provide a causal explanation of mental events?
If you have nonphysical things then you aren't a materialist. What is the ontological status of the number 'four' or its property 'evenness'. Most of us would agree that 'Four is even' is true. In virtue of what physical facts about the world is it true? If it is true in virtue of nonphysical facts, then physicalism is false.
I agree with Kim, but think he really has pinpointed what are probably the only two reasonable positions in the qualia debate (where I take qualia to be those properties of our experience that seem to be different from a mere functional or causal property). That is, some kind of eliminativism (this seems insane on the face of it, as opposed to the propositional attitude case), or some kind of property dualism (which leaves you with a distasteful epiphenomenalism: you could strip away the 'mental' properties, leaving the causal features and the world would not be affected).
Note I take interactionist dualism as a special case of property dualism: if it influences the traditional causal order, then it has causal properties in the physical world, so there is no reason to call it nonphysical. It would still have two aspects, and the mental aspect would still be epiphenomenal.
Interestingly, in contrast to the propositional attitudes debate, which neuroscientists don't give a rat's sphincter about, those studying consciousness (i.e., qualia) tend to be very sensitive to the philosophical problems. Hence, they usually discuss the search for the neuronal correlates of consciousness, leaving the thorny philosophical issues with qualia to the side for when we have more data.
This is the most reasonable approach to qualia from a scientific angle.
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